Advertising is the process through which companies attempt to convince customers to purchase their products. Advertising takes many forms including radio advertisements, television advertisements, billboards, etc. The production and broadcasting of these advertisements has become more and more expensive. Companies wish to maximize the effect of their advertising budgets by determining the most effective means by which to deliver that message.
In order to sell advertising to companies, particular information must often be provided which illustrates the effects of the advertising. The advertising industry standard for analyzing the efficiency of an advertisement is the metric values of reach and frequency with which the advertisement is received by customers. The reach is the percentage of customers who are exposed to the advertisement and the frequency is the number of times an individual customer is exposed to the same advertisement. Companies generally wish to maximize their reach for a certain maximum frequency. This value is generally expressed in the form of a Reach/Frequency curve, or simply a “RF curve,” of reach versus rating points, wherein each rating point has an associated price value.
Of course television (TV) commercials are a well known way of advertising products to the public. Currently companies such as Nielsen Media Research (NMR) provide ratings for TV programs in their entirety. Commercial prices for TV commercials are typically based on these ratings. A recent public announcement by NMR (July 2006) indicated that NMR plans to provide ratings for TV commercials themselves starting in November of 2006. Many experts predict that the new Nielsen rating for TV commercials will indicate that viewership declines when a TV program breaks for commercials given the increase use of digital video recorders and other such technologies which allow viewers to “fast forward” past the advertisements. There is a growing concern about the effectiveness of TV commercials as a venue for advertising based upon inter alia the increasing use of technologies that allow viewers to avoid viewing the advertisement and yet still view the TV program.
In-store advertising at retail stores is becoming an ever increasing effective venue for advertising. This could be a result of decreasing viewership of TV commercials or the increasing awareness of the potential effectiveness of in-store advertising at or near the point of purchase. Indeed, Recency Theory, which essentially states that the closer the advertisement exposure is to the purchasing occasion, the more effective the ad will be, is gaining wider acceptance amongst marketers. Although there have been attempts at developing such metrics to measure in-store advertising akin to the Nielsen ratings for TV commercials and for print media, to date there has not been such a metric adopted by the industry for in-store. See, e.g., “In-store Advertising Audience Measurement Principles,” developed by PCi and ARF, for POPAI, July 2003; US 2006/0111961 A1; US 2006/0010027 A1; US 2006/0010030 A1; US 2005/0234771; US 2005/0216339 A1; US 2005/0200476 A1; US 2003/0126146; US 2002/0161651 A1; U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,128,548; 5,490,060; 5,557,513; 6,837,427 B2; 6,098,048; 7,006,982 B2; WO 2005/103979 A2; WO 95/30201; WO 2005/081876 A2; WO 2004/059369 A2; WO 2004/059388 A1; WO 2005/089320 A2; WO 2005/089322 A2; WO 2004/027556 A2.
Therefore, there is a need to provide such a metric to measure “viewership” of in-store advertisements that is accurate and cost effective to operate, thereby increasing the productivity and effectiveness of marketer's and retailer's spending. Moreover, the ability to calculate the cost per impression to execute in-store advertising will facilitate the allocation of media budgets between in-store versus out-of-store advertising activities, leading to improved communication approaches for the consumer and shopper.